Wireless Communication Method, Core Network Device and Communication Device

This application is a continuation of International Application No. PCT/CN2023/114217, filed on Aug. 22, 2023, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

The present application relates to the technical field of communication, and more specifically, to a wireless communication method, a core network device, and a communication device.

To adapt to varying usage scenarios of terminal devices, it is generally required to adjust the timing advance (TA) to achieve uplink synchronization under various scenarios. In some communication systems, both the initial value and the adjustment value of TA are notified to the terminal device by the network device. For example, the terminal device may dynamically update the TA in response to a TA command transmitted by the network device.

In some cases, for example, where the terminal device cannot obtain a TA adjustment parameter, the terminal device may determine that the TA needs to be adjusted. For example, when the terminal device moves within the serving cell or across cells, it may measure the synchronization signal block (SSB) or conduct time-of-arrival estimation to further determine whether its TA requires adjustment. That is to say, the terminal device possesses the capability to determine whether to adjust the TA.

The present application provides a wireless communication method, a core network device, and a communication device. Various aspects involved in the present application are introduced in the following.

According to a first aspect of the present application, there is provided a wireless communication method. The method includes: receiving first indication information by a core network device; where the first indication information is related to one or more of the following items: measurement information of terminal device; TA information of terminal device; and capability information for autonomous TA adjustment of terminal device.

According to a second aspect of the present application, there is provided another wireless communication method. The method includes: transmitting, by a first device, first indication information to a core network device; where the first indication information is related to one or more of the following items: measurement information of terminal device; TA information of terminal device; and capability information for autonomous TA adjustment of terminal device.

According to a third aspect of the present application, there is provided a core network device. The core network device includes: a receiving unit configured to receive first indication information; where the first indication information is related to one or more of the following items: measurement information of terminal device; TA information of terminal device; and capability information for autonomous TA adjustment of terminal device.

According to a fourth aspect of the present application, there is provided a communication device. The communication device includes: a transmitting unit configured to transmit first indication information to a core network device; where the first indication information is related to one or more of the following items: measurement information of terminal device; TA information of terminal device; and capability information for autonomous TA adjustment of terminal device.

According to a fifth aspect of the present application, there is provided a core network device including a processor, a memory, and a communication interface, where the memory is configured to store one or more computer programs, and the processor is configured to call the one or more computer programs in the memory to cause the core network device to perform some or all of the steps of the method according to the first aspect.

According to a sixth aspect of the present application, there is provided a communication device including a processor, a memory, and a communication interface, where the memory is configured to store one or more computer programs, and the processor is configured to call the one or more computer programs in the memory to cause the communication device to perform some or all of the steps of the method according to the second aspect.

According to a seventh aspect of the present application, there is provided a communication system including the core network device and/or the communication device according to the preceding aspects. In another possible design, the system may further include other devices that interact with the core network device or the communication device as provided in the embodiments of the present application.

According to an eighth aspect of the present application, there is provided a computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program that causes a computer to perform some or all of the steps of the method according to the preceding aspects.

According to a ninth aspect of the present application, there is provided a computer program product, where the computer program product includes a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a computer program, and the computer program is executable to cause a computer to perform some or all of the steps of the method according to the preceding aspects. In some implementations, the computer program product may be a software installation package.

According to a tenth aspect of the present application, there is provided a computer program, where the computer program is executable to cause a computer to perform some or all of the steps of the method according to the preceding aspects.

According to an eleventh aspect of the present application, there is provided a chip including a memory and a processor, where the processor is configured to call a computer program from the memory and execute the computer program to implement some or all of the steps of the method according to the preceding aspects.

In a case that the terminal device can autonomously adjust the TA, based on receiving the first indication information, the core network device can perform TA-related operations according to the first indication information. For example, the core network device may infer whether the terminal device has autonomously adjusted the TA. Since the computility of the core network device exceeds that of the terminal device, delegating TA-related operations to the core network device can reduce the computational burden on the terminal device. In addition, the core network device can obtain information of multiple access network devices, and perform TA-related operations in combination with the information of multiple access network devices, thereby achieving higher accuracy in performing TA-related operations. In addition, in a case that the core network device includes a location server, the first indication information can also provide a basis for the core network device to perform location calculation of terminal devices, thereby improving positioning quality and accuracy.

The technical solutions herein are described below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

shows a wireless communication systemto which the embodiments of the present application are applied. The wireless communication systemmay include a communication device. The communication device may include a network deviceand a terminal device. The network devicemay be a device that communicates with the terminal device. The network devicecan provide communication coverage for specific geographic areas and can communicate with the terminal devicelocated within this coverage area.

illustrates one network device and two terminal devices by way of example. Optionally, the wireless communication systemmay include multiple network devices and each network device's coverage area may include other numbers of terminal devices, which is not limited by the embodiments of the present application.

Optionally, the wireless communication systemmay also include other network entities, such as network controllers and mobility management entities, which is not limited by the embodiments of the present application.

It should be understood that the technical solution of the embodiments of the present application can be applied to various communication systems, such as: the fifth generation (5G) system or new radio (NR), long term evolution (LTE) system, LTE frequency division duplex (FDD) system, LTE time division duplex (TDD), etc. The technical solution provided in the present application can also be applied to future communication systems, such as the sixth generation mobile communication system, satellite communication system, and so on.

The terminal device in the embodiments of the present application may also be referred to as user equipment (UE), access terminal, user unit, user station, mobile platform, mobile station (MS), mobile terminal (MT), remote station, remote terminal, mobile device, user terminal, terminal, wireless communication device, user agent or user device. The terminal device in the embodiments of the present application may refer to a device that provides voice and/or data connectivity to users, and can be configured to communicate people, objects, and machines, such as handheld devices and vehicle mounted devices with wireless connection functions. The terminal device in the embodiments of the present application may be mobile phones, tablets, laptops, palmtop computers, mobile internet devices (MID), wearable devices, virtual reality (VR) devices, augmented reality (AR) devices, wireless terminals in industrial control, wireless terminals in self driving, wireless terminals in remote medical surgery, wireless terminals in smart grid, wireless terminals in transportation safety, wireless terminals in smart city, wireless terminals in smart home, etc. Optionally, UE can be configured to act as a base station. For example, UE may act as a scheduling entity that provides sidelink signals between UEs in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) or device to device (D2D) communication. For example, cellular phones and automobiles can communicate with each other using sidelink signals. Cellular phones can communicate with smart home devices without the need to relay communication signals through the base station.

The network device in the embodiments of the present application may be a device configured for communication with the terminal device. The network device may also include access network device. The access network device may also be referred to as wireless access network device or base station. The access network device in the embodiments of the present application may refer to a radio access network (RAN) node (or device) that connects a terminal device to a radio network. The access network device may broadly cover or be replaced with the following various names, such as: NodeB, evolved NodeB (eNB), next generation NodeB (gNB), relay station, access point, transmitting and receiving point (TRP), transmitting point (TP), master eNB (MeNB), secondary eNB (SeNB), multi-standard radio (MSR) node, home base station, network controller, access node, wireless node, access point (AP), transmission node, transceiver node, base band unit (BBU), remote radio unit (RRU), active antenna unit (AAU), remote radio head (RRH), central unit (CU), distributed unit (DU), positioning node, etc. The base station may be a macro base station, a micro base station, a relay node, a donor node, or the like, or a combination thereof. The base station may also refer to a communication module, modem, or chip configured to be installed within the aforementioned equipment or devices. The base station may also be a device that performs base station functions in mobile switching centers, D2D communication, V2X communication, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, a network side device in 6G network, or a device that performs base station functions in future communication systems. The base station can support networks of the same or different access technologies. The embodiments of the present application impose no limitation on the specific technology and device form adopted by the access network device.

The base station may be fixed or mobile. For example, a helicopters or drone can be configured to act as a mobile base station, and one or more cells can move according to the location of the mobile base station. In other examples, a helicopter or drone can be configured as a device for communication with another base station.

In some deployments, the network device in the embodiments of the present application may refer to CU or DU, or the network device includes CU and DU. gNB may also include AAU.

The network device and the terminal device may be deployed on land, including indoor or outdoor, handheld or vehicle mounted; may also be deployed on the water surface; and may also be deployed on airplanes, balloons, and satellites in the air. The embodiments of the present embodiment impose no limitation on the scenarios in which the network device and the terminal device are located.

The communication devices involved in the wireless communication system may include not only access network devices and terminal devices, but also core network devices. The core network device may also be a network device.

The core network device in the embodiments of the present application may include a device that processes and forwards signaling and data of users. For example, the core network device may include core access and mobility management function (AMF), session management function (SMF), user plane gateway, and location management function (LMF). The user plane gateway may be a server with functions such as mobility management, routing, and forwarding of user plane data, and is generally located on the network side, such as a serving gateway (SGW), a packet data network gateway (PGW), or a user plane function (UPF). AMF and SMF can be equivalent to the mobility management entity (MME) in the LTE system. AMF is mainly responsible for admission, and SMF is mainly responsible for session management. Of course, other network elements may also be included in the core network, which are not listed here.

The core network device may include a location server. The location server can implement location determination, location management, and other location-related functions for terminal devices. In some embodiments, the location server may also be referred to as a location management device. The location server involved in the embodiments of the present application may include LMF network element, or local location management function (LLMF) located in the network device, which is not limited by the embodiments of the present application.

It should be understood that all or part of the functions of the communication devices in the present application can also be implemented through functions of software running on hardware, or through virtualization functions instantiated on platforms (such as cloud platforms).

A wireless communication system (e.g., LTE/NR system) may adopt an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission scheme. This is because only when the subcarriers maintain orthogonality, the wireless communication system can have good demodulation performance. However, due to the existence of transmission delay, a downlink signal is received by the terminal device only after a certain delay. Due to the different locations of different terminal devices relative to the network device, uplink signals transmitted by different terminal devices arrive at the network device at different times, which in turn affects the orthogonality among subcarriers and reduce the demodulation performance of the OFDM transmission scheme. Taking uplink transmission as an example, an important feature of uplink transmission is orthogonal multiple access in time-frequency for different terminal devices, which means that uplink transmissions from different terminal devices in the same cell do not interfere with each other. Uplink transmission is generally a transmission involving multiple terminal devices. Consequently, the network device may receive signals from multiple terminal devices at a same time.

In order to ensure the orthogonality of uplink transmission and avoid intra-cell interference, the network device may require that signals from different terminal devices with different frequency domain resources to arrive at the network device be substantially temporally aligned. This requirement results from the following considerations: the network device can correctly decode the uplink data as long as it receives the uplink data transmitted by the terminal device within a cyclic prefix. In addition, in order to maintain the orthogonality among uplink reference signals using different cyclic shifts, the network device may also require that the received uplink reference signals be temporally aligned. Therefore, in order to achieve uplink synchronization, or to ensure time synchronization on the network device side, wireless communication systems (such as LTE/NR systems) require a TA uplink mechanism.

To adapt to varying usage scenarios of terminal devices, it is generally required to adjust TA to achieve uplink synchronization under various scenarios. In some communication systems, both the initial value and the adjustment value of TA are notified to the terminal device by the network device.

For example, the access network device sends a TA command to the terminal device, so that the terminal device can adjust the transmission of the uplink channel and/or uplink signal, thereby enabling the uplink signals of different terminal devices to reach the access network device. The uplink channel and/or uplink signal may include one or more of the following: physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), physical uplink control channel (PUCCH), and sounding reference signal (SRS).

In some cases, for example, where the terminal device cannot obtain a TA adjustment parameter, the terminal device may determine that the TA needs to be adjusted. For example, when the terminal device moves within the serving cell or across cells, it may measure the synchronization signal block (SSB) or conduct time-of-arrival estimation to further determine whether its TA requires adjustment. In other words, the terminal device possesses the capability to determine that the TA needs to be adjusted without being notified by the access network device.

If the terminal device has adjusted the TA and the network device is unaware of the adjustment, various issues may arise. For example, the access network device needs to calculate the adjustment value of TA based on the uplink signal transmitted by the terminal device. If the terminal device has adjusted the TA and the access network device is unaware of this adjustment, the access network device is unable to ascertain the base for the TA adjustment value provided by the network device. Alternatively, the access network device may use the TA value before the terminal device autonomously adjusts the TA as the base, and thus the access network device is unable to control or accurately control the TA. Consequently, the network device loses control over the TA. In other words, the TA would be controlled entirely by the terminal device. When the TA is completely controlled by the terminal device, the computing complexity and power consumption of the terminal device both increase.

is a schematic flowchart of a wireless communication method provided in the embodiments of the present application for addressing the above issues. The method shown incan be implemented by a core network device and a first device.

The core network device may include, for example, a location server. For example, the core network device may include LMF.

The first device may include a terminal device and/or a first access network device. The first access network device may be an access network device corresponding to a serving cell of the terminal device or a neighboring cell.

The method shown inincludes step S.

In step S, the core network device receives first indication information.

In a case that the first device includes a terminal device, the terminal device may transmit first indication information to the core network device through the first access network device. In a case that the first device includes a first access network device, the first access network device may directly transmit the first indication information to the core network device.

The first indication information may be related to one or more of the following items: capability information for autonomous TA adjustment of terminal device, measurement information of terminal device, and TA information of terminal device. The following provides a detailed explanation.

Information on capability of terminal device to autonomously adjust TA can be used to indicate the capability of the terminal device to autonomously adjust TA. The capability information may include, for example, one or more of the following items: whether the terminal device can autonomously adjust the TA, and the timing for the terminal device to autonomously adjust the TA. If the terminal device possesses the capability to autonomously adjust the TA, it must possess certain computing and measurement capabilities to perform synchronization tracking on one or more cells or to estimate the downlink pilot time-of-arrival for one or more cells.

It should be noted that the capability information for autonomous TA adjustment of terminal device can be reported by the terminal device and/or the first access network device. For the terminal device, it is optional for the terminal device to report the capability information.

It should be noted that “autonomous adjustment” refers to the adjustment of TA by the terminal device without intervention from the network device; or, the terminal device adjusts the TA not based on TA commands issued by the network device. Therefore, “autonomous adjustment” is only one possible expression. For example, the term “autonomous adjustment” in this paper may also be replaced by: automatic adjustment or self-adjustment, etc.

The measurement information may include information obtained by the terminal device and/or the access network device through measurement.

In some embodiments, the measurement information may include one or more of the following items: measurement quantity, and time-of-arrival measured by terminal device.

The measurement quantity may include the measurement results of signals transmitted between the terminal device and one or more access network devices. By way of example, the measurement quantity may include one or more of the following measurement results: measurement results of signals transmitted between the terminal device and the access network device corresponding to the serving cell, and measurement results of signals transmitted between the terminal device and the access network device corresponding to the neighboring cell.